The road to hell
by The cursed child
Summary: Audrey, Lucy, Sarah, they were parts of a whole. The original them, the story they have been searching for relentlessly, does exist. And William is right, she did create the Troubles. He just forgets to mention how it started, how many people she saved. It starts like this ;She and William are in love and build a small town named Haven.


**A/N Spoilers for every aired episode. Just all my ideas and theories that had to be written down. And why not share it with you guys?**

Audrey heals within minutes. Her blood cloths, her skin knits, and soon the only proof of the gunshot-wound is the hole in her blood-stained shirt.

Her breathing is still unsteady. Small hitches of breath keep enough air in her lungs, but her thoughts still feel fuzzy. Shock, her mind supplies helpfully, and a concussion.

The floor is unreasonably cold, and a nail is poking her in the back. Nathan's hands are warm on her skin, where he is still checking if the wound is really gone. Their guns are on the floor next to her, and she blindly reaches for it. Her fingers miss a few times before enclosing around the metal. Also cold.

Her eyes switch from Nathan to Duke, who scrambles to her on his knees.

"William is unconscious," he says. That isn't right. She is nowhere near unconscious, her mind clearing up with every slowly passing second. He hadn't hit his head like she did. William had managed to break his fall with a quickly extended hand.

"Duke," she croaks. He leans closer to hear her better, his hair tickling her face. She has an insane moment where she wants to giggle, before recalling what she wanted to say. "Tie him up." That was it. Take him prisoner. A good plan.

The men above her both look to the floor where William was lying just a minute earlier, but only see the wooden floorboards. They share a look above her, trying to figure out how to tell the blonde. They don't need to, because she already knows he's gone.

The next part is a blur. Nathan and Duke drive her to the hospital, insisting that she needs someone to check her for internal bleeding and a concussion.

She ends up In a disgustingly white bed. It is more comfortable than the floor or the back of their car, but she misses her clothes. The hospital gown is ugly and makes her feel naked.

The boys don't leave her bedside, and remain silent, even though she knows they are bursting with questions. William isn't anywhere in the hospital, which is a godsend. The fact that she can feel it when he is close, confirming his story, is not.

His words resonate in her mind, like a song stuck on repeat. They created The Troubles. She created The Troubles.

Little does she know….

Haven is built near the water. It isn't the most ideal location, but at least it guarantees fish in the summer, and the ground is fertile. The only reason they decide to settle there is because the Plague and Smallpox don't exist there somehow.

People from all over the world find their place there, and eighteen-year-old William decides to call it Haven, because it is probably the safest town in the world. People who lived on these lands were healthier, lived longer. His wife, a beautiful blonde at the age of sixteen (more of a woman than a girl), smiles when he tells her, and tells him that they couldn't have chosen a better place to settle.

That feeling only lasts through the first summer. The crops rot, and the water is contaminated, so the fish is poisonous. They enter fall and winter without provisions, and it takes only days for the first people to die from hunger and thirst.

William and his wife try to take care of their promised these men and woman shelter and safety, and they will provide god's orphans with whatever they need.

They find the source that keeps out sickness in their little town. It is an ordinary rock in the middle of an open field, right next to the cottage William built for his wife and their future children a few months ago.

It is surprisingly easy to bend the supernatural to their will.

William's wife is the smart one. It is unusual for a woman, but that's one of the many things her husband loves about her, so he lets her plan everything. His first priority is her safety and happiness, and he will do anything to ensure it.

The winter is relentless, so she calls on her childhood friend, Adam, who is also her neighbour, and asks him to bear a gift. He trusts her implicitly, and lets her fingers encircle his wrist, blackening his flesh.

They talk for hours. She inspires him, talks about hope and warmth and how he can change lives with his gift. When she says goodbye and steps out his door, she finds melted snow and the hot sun on her face.

They both smile in amazement. The weather brightens visibly, and hope rises in Haven's citizens.

Of course, the problem isn't fixed yet. Crops need time to grow, and the water might no longer be frozen, but is still poisonous. Animals have long since left the area.

She and William spend hours discussing their next steps. She is impossibly creative, knows exactly what they need and which problems are the priorities.

Volunteers gather at their door, having heard of the good magic that their founders are distributing, waiting to be gifted. They are so easily happy, that the situation in Haven changes drastically in a year.

A particularly daring man steps forward when she introduces a gift that turns rotten food fresh when eaten by the gifted. The reverse is also true when he is unhappy, but the full stomachs make sure that nobody questions any downsides, yet.

The animal hides, which they don't need while Adam keeps the weather in check, are stuffed with leaves. One of the volunteers can bring the animals back to life, and by the time they celebrate William's twenty-first birthday, deer are grazing in the forest, ready to be hunted. How that works, no one really knows, but they don't dare to complain.

The crops grow when the love between a gifted couple remains strong. They have too much food, and Haven's numbers grow exponentially.

The men in the largest family of the town are given a chance to breathe under water, allowing them to catch the uncontaminated fish up north and bring them home, their wives waiting unbearably long for their safe return, only to let them go again a week later.

The gifted are solving problems one by one, and it takes six years before they find out that the troubles are hereditary. Children are a lot harder to keep happy, and suddenly, gifts are called The Troubles. Uncontrollable curses that cause destruction and pain. Adam's depression brings them freezing temperatures in the middle of the summer. Fresh food turns rotten without explanation.

The citizens turn against the founders of Haven overnight. That doesn't mean the beautiful blonde stops helping and gifting anyone in need. People still find her in the middle of the night, and she helps, because this is the only way she knows how.

An artist asks her to fix her deformed two-year-old, so she tells her to draw the child like she wants the baby to look. Another asks her to bring back her husband, no matter what the cost. He is alive by sundown, and the only real drawback is a set of matching scars.

Even though people curse her and William, nobody attacks her directly. It takes her months to find out that his circle of friends is being turned into torture- and murder machines. People can suddenly turn enemies into dust, cause them immense pain. The woman who was brave enough to attack her is dying one day while she was healthy the day before, and kills her oldest children for their organs. The woman-turned-monster kills herself, saving the only child she has left.

Her love for him (which has been burning and unrelenting since they met) turns to blinding hate. They stand at opposite sites of the battlefield, though only in her mind. His love for her is still strong, turning into obsession. Or maybe an obsession is all it ever was.

Still, they are connected, both physically, and in the minds of their people. Her good intentions and gifts turn into Troubles, while William no longer even tries to hide his hate and disguise his curses in any way. She doesn't know if he's always been like this, or if the Troubles turned him into what he is, but she mourns the one she fell in love with what seems like ages ago.

To stop William, she creates the most harmful curse, and brands Duke Crocker, the boy who cares for the horses in town and rides miles and miles to relay messages. The boy who is loyal to her to his last breath, and kills far too many to end William's damage, and sometimes her own. How many times does she see him cry, and asks him to do it again? How many times is she pushed by guilt, and gives him just a little bit more of herself, a bigger piece in her heart, to clear her own conscience. She can't tell anymore if it is love or not, maybe the troubles twisted her just as much. She only knows that she can't ever give in and kiss him. She needs him to depend on her, but the reverse can't become true. She doesn't know that parts of her heart will always belong to a Crocker. She does know that the hidden compartment in her heart will always belong to William, no matter how much it blackens.

There is only one way she can solve everything she has caused,intentionally or not, so she goes to the only person she can trust. Her father.

The box with Troubles is in her possession at the moment, but she knows William is on her heels. Time is running out. Without asking, she curses her father, leaves a delicate hand-print on the side of his face. She is all he has left, so he doesn't hesitate to do as she asks.

He calls something in existence. She recognizes it as her childhood home, and opens the door. If she is right, her banishment will stop the Troubles forever. It is just, it is what she has to do to atone for her actions.

The inside of the house is impossibly white, and she thinks she might find peace here, when William falls through the open door, locking them up together, forever. He whispers in her ear, and she can't escape him. William is charming, handsome, and she almost forgets what he has done. But what he has done, and what she has done are closely connected, and her sins are too great to erase from her mind, no matter how many sweet things he says.

Time in her prison is unpredictable, sometimes a second can take what feels like hours. Other times, days pass in seconds.

Memories are written on the white walls, both hers and William's. She sees how much he loves her, what he has been through to be with her, the fun they've had. It's so true and honest that she falls back in his arms.

The door, always closed and bolted, opens. Her daddy is standing in the door frame, older but happy. He lets her out, says she needs to charge the Home, whatever that is. Daddy tells her that he can hear everything that happens in the barn, how disappointed he is that she can't resist the psychopath she married.

Daddy walks her through the town. Haven has changed, but is remarkably the same. She visits friends and family, ready to see their faces again, but is disappointed. Her return has brought The Troubles back. She tries to help, but is met by scorn and hate. Children are just as cursed as their parents, and destruction is everywhere.

A year passes, and she has been broken and shattered, turned into dust, and just managed to rebuilt herself from the ashes of her tortured spirit.

Unable to bare the pain of what she has done, she asks her Daddy to wipe her memory, to let her live in peace. He succeeds, to a point, but William is always there, ready to remind her of who she is. To compensate, her Daddy fills her blank mind with the memories of strangers. It makes her less susceptible to William's manipulations.

She doesn't know, that 27 years later, she will step out of her childhood home to charge it again, and continue to help many generations of the Troubled. With every set of memories, she fades away further, but her personality, her need to help people, never changes.

In the Home, William is always there to try and get them both out, but her father manages to get him under lock and key, while she charges on the outside.

While she and William don't age, forever frozen in time, her dad does. The man dies while she is in Haven, and she has no idea who he is or what he has done for her.

In her never-ending quest to find out who she really is, she finds a boy, almost her age. He is her half-brother and is connected to the Home. He has the same trouble as her father, and can call her prison into existence, even if it changes shape. Once charged, she enters her half-brother's ship-like cell. It is just as white, and William is just as present.

Time and time again, she loses family members to her prison. It is tragic that she has no idea who they are and who she is. Always feeling the loss but never knowing where it comes from. How many times has she killed them herself, desperate to destroy her cell and stop the Hunter? She doesn't know, probably never will.

Will she find out in time that Jennifer is one of them? That she can call the Barn into existence as well, but in the form of a magnificent lighthouse. That she has family, no matter how distant? That she is loved, even though she doesn't deserve it, by the men whose curses she created, who she used to fix a problem she brought into existence? Hasn't she wronged these people and their families enough?

Once she knows, she will forget how many people she helped, how she saved the great-great-great grandfathers and mothers that allow these people Audrey loves to exist. The bad will erase all the good she has done, all the sins she has atoned for, even if it is only in her own mind.

Will she destroy herself, or will her loved ones be able to pull her out of this continuous circle of self-punishment? Can she really end the troubles forever? She doesn't think so, but everybody else does.

They have faith in her, they believe in her loving heart, her unending goodness, her relentless fight for justice, and they know that she can change her name a thousand times, but that inside she will always be that young woman that will never stop trying to save everyone.

With every memory that surfaces, they are at her side. When she locks herself up and cries herself to sleep, they are there to kick down her door. When she stands on the cliff she searched on her first visit to Haven, ready to jump, they are dragging her away, kicking and screaming.

She stands on the field where her friends opened the door to the Barn, facing Jennifer's Lighthouse. William is between her and the door, star-crossed lovers on opposite sides.

She loves this man, somewhere deep down. He is a part of her. They are connected supernaturally. Yet, she has never felt as close to him as she does to Nathan or Duke or Jennifer. There is something pure about those friendships, something that clears her mind and heart, where William has knowingly tainted it from the first time they met.

"You really have no idea what she did, do you?" William asks her friends. And they don't. No matter how much they have been there for her, she hasn't been able to tell Nathan about the day she cursed his family to live without feeling anything, a small reprieve from the pain that would otherwise always be their world. Doesn't dare to tell Duke that she used his ancestor as her own personal assassin, like she had done to him. That she is the cause of their pain and suffering. The reason they are both orphans, with no family left. Can't discuss the fact that Jennifer is her many-times-removed niece, and that she has damned her own family to a life-long servitude for her own failure.

"There was another Duke Crocker in our time. He was the stable-boy, and hopelessly in love with Audrey, just like you are now." The sharp reminder about what she has done to either Duke makes her wince. She steps away from them, in shame, a step closer to William. "She created the Crocker trouble, ordered the boy to kill anyone who stood In her way." A part of Audrey wishes to argue. Those people were killers, cold and emotionless. They had used their troubles to destroy Haven and its citizens. But she still ordered the hits. Another step away from her friends, another toward William.

"And you, Nathan. She cursed your family too. She loves you because she pities you, just like she pitied your ancestors. She is the cause Hansen abused your mother, the reason his mother locked him up to make sure he wouldn't get hurt."

It doesn't have the desired effect, because everyone knows that it is a lie. One that she doesn't have to deny. "Sweet Jennifer, how many years did you spent on medication because of her, locked up in an asylum. She killed your great-grandmother, and Howard made sure that he would live as long as it took to avenge his mother. Asked me to immortalize him. Lucy killed your parents in an attempt to remain free. She didn't know that Howard was still alive. Begged him to save her son after annihilating your family."

Audrey stumbles another step. She doesn't know if this is true or not. She doesn't know what Sarah and Lucy did yet, isn't that far along in her memories.

She is in the middle between her friends and William. There is a hypnotizing quality about her former lover's voice. Only shame powers her enough to take another step toward him, away from the people she has hurt many times over.

Hands grab her from behind, hold her up as her knees give out. She is squished between her two boys when Jennifer steps in front of her, arms wide.

It doesn't help. They can't stop his words, can't stop the shame and the pain. Quietly, she wonders if James will be in the Lighthouse. William has survived many destructions of their prison after all.

Seeing her son again, keeping the Troubles away for another 26 years might just be worth it. New memories, a clean slate. But her friends will never let her go, William won't let her go.

Her head hurts. She is dizzy and only the twin grips on her arms keep her standing. Her hands are trembling, but her fingers are steady on the trigger of her gun as she draws it.

There is no more talking, no last dramatic words, as she points past Jennifer's head and fires a bullet. She feels it the moment it hits William's skin, and pierces her own as well.

Her friends panic as she stops breathing, the body of William a couple of feat away.

"The Lighthouse, quickly!" Nathan yells. They hoist her up and bring her body to the door, wrenching it open and stepping inside.

Duke recognizes the white walls and ceiling, and they breathe in relieve as Audrey takes a new breath. The door is still open, and William's body remains un-moving.

As long as she isn't willing, the door won't close. Even then, Jennifer is the one who must activate it, and they all know she won't.

Without warning, the Lighthouse disappears, and they are back on the field with the body. Audrey is breathing slowly, a wound still above her heart. The Lighthouse had healed her just enough to revive her, but the tissue is still damaged and the ribs still shattered.

They rush her to the hospital, where the doctors take her to surgery immediately. They sit in the waiting room, in aged chairs that creak with every movement. Duke's hands are the ones covered in blood, as he had been the one to apply pressure while Nathan drove. He Is staring at his red hands with empty eyes, and it takes everything Nathan has to shake him out of it with both words and physical shaking.

In fascination, he stares at his hand. He can feel the leather of Duke's jacket. Dwight takes that moment to arrive. He is disheveled and speaking into his phone. They had called him only minutes earlier, to update him on recent events.

"They're gone," Dwight states. He doesn't elaborate, and Nathan doesn't need him to. The Troubles are gone. Audrey killed the one she loved, just like she was supposed to from the beginning, but hadn't been able to back then.

And really, the day can't get any better when they get the all-clear.

Audrey is alive and wants to see them.


End file.
